2016
by Elise May
Summary: "Joy. Happiness."


_This is basically going to be a rewrite of 2016 (hence the title) because I'm bitter and, quite frankly, they deserve better. A week per chapter - sometimes split into different parts - is what I'm going to be aiming for. Having said that, I am already behind, so do bear with me. Please let me know what you think and whether you'd be interested in reading any more! Many thanks._

* * *

 **2016**

* * *

 _month one, week one (part i)_

* * *

It's raining. There are fireworks in the sky and a chill in the air and Carla watches the scene on the street unfold before her through her window. The flat is cold; inside, she is even colder. Her anger has long since burnt out. Now all that she is left with is bitterness. Bitterness in her mouth that she can't quite swallow, a taste she can't rid herself of. A heavy chest and a heavy heart and her whole body is heavy. She makes her way over to the couch and near on collapses onto it, her eyes shutting tightly as the sound of the new year's celebrations ring in her head.

 _Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot and old lang syne?_

People are cheering outside and she doesn't know that whilst her fiancé is standing amongst them, he is standing alone. Silent. In fact, he is looking up at the window - _their_ window - with a longing and a hesitance and a need for some sort of an answer. A need to better a terrible situation neither asked for, neither expected; but have found themselves in nonetheless.

This is their life. This is their lot. The sooner they come to terms with that, the better.

Nick holds Carla's card close to his chest, shielding it beneath his coat from the rain as he walks hurriedly towards Victoria Court, passing Johnny Connor and his reddened cheek along the way and not saying a word about it.

Carla doesn't hear the key turn in the lock, doesn't hear the click of the door opening. Nick thinks she is sleeping on the couch when he enters, but she isn't. _I'm just resting my eyes_ is what he can hear her saying in his head. A happier her, a her who smiles and means it. She comes to rather quickly, the glass of wine she'd habitually poured for herself untouched and upon the coffee table in an instant.

She turns her head to look at him and it is sadness he is met with; shame and a thousand sorrys she will never say, but he knows she'd mean every single one of them, if only she were given the time to speak. Instead, she leans back against the couch and holds her hand out for him to take. He smiles slightly and removes his coat, propping up her card on the island in front of him, a sight that makes her heart ache for it didn't even cost her a pound, yet he appears to have gone to great lengths to get it home in one piece, without a tear or a crease or a even so much as a mark.

He takes her hand and holds it gently, places it on top of his thigh as he rests his body sluggishly against the back of the couch.

"Hey," she says quietly.

"Hey."

The lights aren't on, but the blinds are open and they stare at each other in the moonlight. Every time a firework is let off, the room fills momentarily with colour; the loud bang that accompanies each doing little to frighten them or set them off course.

"So." Carla breaks the silence. Her voice is unsure and more than a little awkward. "How was your birthday?"

Her eyes are on her card to him; the smiling puppy, the deep blue stars. Nick purses his lips.

"It was alright."

"Alright?" An eyebrow is raised and she lets out a deep sigh. "Look, Nick. I am so sorry."

He shakes his head, adamant.

"Honestly, Carla — "

She is squeezing his hand and moving their joint hands so that she can rest her head against them tiredly. In need of comfort.

"No, but I am," she argues. "I genuinely had no idea."

He nods.

"Like I said," he replies. "It doesn't matter. It's no big deal. It's just one day, in't it?"

"Yes, but it's your day!" She lets go of his hand, annoyance in her every movement as she reaches over for her wine glass. He doesn't stop her. He watches her; doesn't even blink. Maybe that's the reason why she merely holds the glass. The red liquid isn't quite so tempting to her when she knows she is being observed. Shaking slightly, she pushes the glass away from herself. Meets his eyes. Rests her head close to where his leg is leaning. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Nick looks guiltily down at her. His eyes are heavy and he is beginning to look as tired to her as her body is feeling. She's exhausted emotionally more than anything else.

"Well, you were so preoccupied with — "

She cuts him off. She can't bear to hear his name.

"I mean before that."

Nick sighs, shrugs his shoulders.

"I don't know, okay? I didn't want a big fuss, I suppose. I mean, it's New Year's Eve. There's enough celebrating going on."

"No."

All of a sudden, she stands and her legs are more steady than she had been expecting them to be. She makes her way around the sofa, comes to stand directly in front of him. The intensity in her eyes takes him aback, makes him stand up straight and let her pull him closer to her by his tie, which she seems to have taken a particular interest in.

"No," she repeats. And her voice is just a whisper, a firm and very sure exhalation of breath. "No one ever celebrates you enough." She is so passionate about this. She is close to tears and his head is now being held by her and she presses the briefest of kisses to his lips before continuing with, "I don't, but I should." And she kisses him again, harder. His arms encircle her waist and they wrap themselves around one another. "I want to." Another kiss. "Let me," she begs.

And he does let her. He lets her focus on something other than the sorry state she has found herself in in the hope that it will make her feel better, make her feel more like herself than she has done in the past week since she became knowledgeable of the truth.

He isn't to know, however, that the opposite will happen. She forgets herself in him, but not for long. She can never seem to lose herself for long enough.

* * *

Carla gets very little sleep. In fact, she doesn't sleep at all. They have sex and it's wonderful - but he drifts off, leaves her alone with thoughts that taunt her and have such a hold on her that if she were sleeping, she'd be in a nightmare. But what she is experiencing is very much real. She is feeling so much at once. Too much at once. Rejection and hurt and the greatest betrayal. She feels as if she were once invisible. An invisible child with invisible wants and needs and dreams for the future. She was invisible. To her mother and to Johnny, to everyone she shouldn't have been invisible to and more.

She wonders now if this is why, in her adult life, disappearing is something she has always wanted to do, even though she's never really been any good at it.

She has wished her existence away so many times, but no more than she knows Johnny must've over the years. She wonders if he ever thought of her as more than just the result of what she knows for a fact was the biggest mistake of his life. _She_ is the biggest mistake of his life; too physical to be ignored or forgotten.

She wonders what he thought when he heard things about her, about how she was getting on. Like when she married Paul, took over his business, went on to marry another two men he never once made the effort to meet. Or like when a tram fell out of the sky, onto the street in which she worked and lived by. When a madman held her captive in her own factory, the factory he now owns forty percent of.

Did he not think of her at all? Did he not care?

Maybe he just wanted to forget. Maybe he blamed her for Lou's death and wanted nothing more to do with her, the constant reminder of all he had done wrong.

So why make himself a part of her life again? Why take away Aidan's stake? Why get Kate involved? Why be a partner in her business who is anything but silent? Why move within walking distance away from her? Why become so interested in Nick, in their relationship? Why offer to pay for their engagement party?

The questions don't stop. All night and all morning, her head is loud enough to cause an ache. His interest in her now has stemmed from guilt and it has stemmed from pity. She wants neither from him or from anyone else.

It is nearing on four o'clock when Nick's snoring, which hadn't bothered her until she could think no more and sleep finally became an option to her, begins to grate. He only snores after drinking more than usual and she knows that champagne gets into his system rather quicker. The reason behind the noise, however, does not make it any less irritating and she pokes him, just the once, before reaching over the bed to grab her silk dressing gown.

"Nick, shut up."

He groans slightly and rolls over so that he is no longer facing her. He has his back to her and it is taut and it would be so easy for her to lay her head against him, to close her eyes and beg for sleep to claim her. His body would be warm and comforting and maybe that's just what she needs right now, for that feeling of togetherness to envelope her.

But it's not as easy as that; it never is.

He doesn't shut up. His snoring continues; as does her lack of sleep. She sits up in bed, sighs loudly and considers moving to the sofa. It is once the place she slept on more than any other, but that has since changed to within the confines of Nick's arms. Nick's bed, her bed, their bed. She knows she would never be able to sleep on the sofa now. She'd only do her back in and she's already aching everywhere else. It would just be yet another thing to add to her list of reasons to be pissed off. And she's sick of feeling that way. She's sick of feeling any way at all.

* * *

"White or brown?"

She can barely keep her eyes open to look at him. They are red around the edges, bloodshot and drooping. She mumbles a reply that is halfway between the two.

"Sorry?"

She envies his smile and his brisk walk around the kitchen to the fridge and the way in which his face is so soft - no frown lines, no nothing.

"I said white," she snaps, whilst knowing perfectly well she said neither.

Nick doesn't react and instead tends to the toaster. He watches her carefully as he makes breakfast. She seems so far away, checking her phone every few seconds, studying her nails, staring at the floor. She seems bored and she's sighing, sighing loudly; more so the closer he gets to where she is sat.

He puts down a plate in front of her and the noise it creates isn't loud, but it is amplified inside her head and she groans at it.

His joke of, "What's wrong with you? Hungover?" does little to help her sour mood.

She glares at him and finds herself biting back. "No. But I didn't sleep last night. And do you wanna know why?"

Nick shrugs. "Why?"

"Because you kept me up all night with your bleeding snoring."

He isn't sure what there is to say to that, so he takes a breath and is about to apologise when she pushes her plate away from her and stands up, the movement sudden enough to make him jump.

"Woah, woah. Where are you going?"

She is moving quickly towards the bedroom.

"I'm going for a shower," she says.

He follows her. "But it's New Year's Day! Literally _the_ most lazy day of the year. There's no need for you to shower yet."

She turns to face him.

"I'm going to work, Nick. Okay? I need to get away. I need a distraction." She pauses for breath, to calm herself down. "I just feel so suffocated by everything, you know? There's the whole Johnny thing and then there's..." She realises her mistake a moment too late.

"Me," he finishes for her and the way his face falls and his voice becomes little more than a whisper should make her heart sink, should make her feel apologetic. But all it manages to do is add to her frustration and she cries, "Yes! Yes, _you_! You kept me up all night, Nick! I'm exhausted!"

"Then why go to work?" he shouts back. "You're not in the right frame of mind!"

"I'm not in the right frame of mind for anything right now!" She continues her journey to the bathroom, slamming the door in his face and arguing through it, "Just leave me alone!"

And he does.

* * *

He leaves her alone for the whole hour in which it takes for her to get ready, but he still insists on walking her to work - despite not being able to maintain eye contact with her. She obliges because she doesn't have it in her to argue with him. She doesn't have the energy to. She longs to be in the sanctuary of her own factory, alone with a whiskey bottle and a mug in which the liquid is poured. It doesn't belong in there, quite like the way she doesn't feel as if she belongs anywhere at all. She never has.

They reach the steps of Underworld and neither know how to break their silence. It's not comfortable, but it's certainly not awkward either; it's charged. Tension hangs in the air between them and Nick steps forward to place a firm, angry kiss to her waiting lips, which she returns with something of a groan and a stumble towards him. They part, and Nick is slightly breathless, his eyes searching hers, as if waiting for her to respond verbally, physically.

But she doesn't. She just nods a fraction and he walks away. She watches him walk away and it makes her chest ache, but she pushes all that hurt away and unlocks the factory, enters it with a firm step and throws herself down into her chair - the one Johnny often likes to claim as his own - and reaches for the emergency supply of alcohol she keeps in the bottom drawer of her desk.

The cold bottle should not be in her warm hands.

It's been left untouched since the summer, since she and Nick got properly together, but she doesn't allow herself to dwell on that now. There's no time for it. Despite the early hour, the drink is knocked back, straight down her throat, a burning sensation she has missed the feeling of. She pulls paper from her bag, the letter she'd almost forgotten had arrived, and wallows in her own misery. She reads the print over and over again until the words blur and all she is aware of is that Rob wants to see her, Rob who ruined her life, Rob who did it because he was bored and tired and so very full of hate.

Carla quickly becomes bored.

The letter is read, the alcohol drunk. Her phone is off, but her fingers long to be active. She craves for something more. Something to do, something to help her forget.

The realisation comes slowly at first. She stares at her computer; the blank screen, the mouse she could so easily touch, keys just waiting to be pressed. It would be so easy. To log on, to sign in. That buzz - she'd be lying if she said she hadn't missed it. For a time, it wasn't needed. She found her escape elsewhere. Not in the turn of a dice, but in the turn of a hand. His hand in her hand and everything felt perfectly alright. She was perfectly alright.

But not now.

Now, her hands are working faster than her mind and the website is still saved to her favourites. She clicks on it eagerly, wantonly. Doesn't question why it doesn't require her to fill in her details. Doesn't question anything other than why (and how) she denied herself of this feeling, this feeling of complete and utter abandon, for so long.

She's not stupid. She knows what she is doing is wrong, but that knowledge doesn't stop her. If anything, it _encourages_ her.

Hours pass and she doesn't win a single game. But she needs to win before she can admit defeat, sober up and pretend this lapse of strength never happened. That doesn't mean she can, however; it doesn't mean she has the ability to. It feels as if her losing streak will never end and her eyes are finally drawn to the corner of the screen, to the balance - once green, once a four figure sum - which is now negative, and the billing name above it, the name of the card holder, makes her feel physically sick.

Because she had honestly forgotten. Had really not thought to check.

 _N. Tilsley_


End file.
